How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

ke me smile.”

He lets himself lean against her, lets himself hear the warmth in her voice. “There is one thing I did like about playing the hero. The only good bit. And that was not having to be terrified for you.”

“The next time you want to make a point,” Jude says, “I beg you not to make it so dramatically.”

His shoulder hurts, and she may be right about the iron poisoning. He certainly feels as though his head is swimming. But he smiles up at the trees, the looping electrical lines, the streaks of clouds.

“So long as you’re begging,” he says.

“You didn’t hear the story I told,” he goes on. “A shame. It featured a handsome boy with a heart of stone and a natural aptitude for villainy. Everything you could like.”

She laughs. “You really are terrible, you know that? I don’t even understand why the things you say make me smile.”

Her fingers are cold against his flushed skin. It’s nice. He hopes she won’t take them away.

“And you think it was sunrise I was waiting for and not my queen. Do you not hear her footfalls? She has never quite managed the trick of hiding them as well as one of the Folk. Surely you’ve heard of her, Jude Duarte, who defeated the redcap Grima Mog, who brought the Court of Teeth to their knees? She’s forever getting me out of scrapes. Truly, I don’t know what I would do without her.”

“You don’t think monster girls and wicked boys deserve love?” Cardan asks her

“Because stories tell a truth, if not precisely the truth.”

Cardan regards Jude’s sword with some embarrassment, the truth of Aslog’s words obvious. He gives a long sigh. “I am the High King of Elfhame. I raised an isle from the bottom of the sea. I have strangled a dozen knights in vines. I hardly think I need it, but it does make me look rather more formidable, don’t you agree?”

Cardan doesn’t add that he laughs when he is nervous.

Of course, he has no human money. But the High King of Elfhame refuses to pay with glamoured leaves, as though he were some common peasant. He hands over glamoured gold instead and walks out with his purchases, feeling smug.